Behavior Bonded Male Pair in Same Room With Female?

[dystopoly]

I apologize if I should have posted this in housing instead, but since it’s the behavior I’m worried about I thought I’d post it here. I have my two (1 year old) boys together in a 4x2 C&C cage with a 2x2 upper floor, and they’ve been living together happily since they were babies (with one minor spat due to a hormone spike that was quickly resolved).

Earlier this week, someone abandoned a year old hairless female guinea pig at my work and ever since I’ve fallen in love with her and am absolutely dying to take her home, too. The only problem is that I would be needing to keep her in the same room with the boys, and I absolutely do NOT want to break their bond.

She would be out of sight, most likely set up in her own 2x4 underneath them. Is this doable? How big of a risk am I taking by keeping her so close to my boys? I’ve heard lots of people saying they’ve had great success with housing boys and girls in the same room, but if it’s a high risk they’ll fall out with each other then I will have to give up on her completely. I would really love to be able to make it work, including looking into getting her or the boys fixed if that would resolve the issue.
Any and all advice would be appreciated!

 

[Soecara]

I have my boys in cages below my girls and they are none the wiser. I prefer to have my girls on top because I have a metal stand my father welded for me so there is absolutely no way for the boys to climb up to the girls if they were to somehow get out of their cages (though an escape has never happened in the several years I have had this setup).

It shouldn't be an issue unless the cages are side by side, or you accidentally give the boys something that smells like girls (i have made that mistake before and it resulted in injuries to both of them and me, but the boys were able to go back together after proper re-introductions after everyone had healed).

 

[dystopoly]

Were your boys in the room first, or the other way around? It’s starting to sound from everything I’ve heard that you’ll never really know if it’s going to work out unless you give it a try, lol. Also, do you wash all of their bedding together or separate in that case? I would assume that avoiding any kind of smell mixing would be ideal, and I really wouldn’t want to be causing any rifts by accidentally washing all of their bedding and getting the smells mixed up.

 

[Soecara]

Well over the years as I have had guinea pigs pass I have re-bonded my boys and girls with new same gendered cage mates, and I have almost always owned both boars and sow. With this set-up the boys and girls were moved in on the same day, but before that they had been in cages in two different rooms (still boys and girls in the same rooms though) so in the room there wasn't really a who was there first. My first ever guinea pig was a boar, and he was on his own for a while until I adopted a pregnant sow pair and bonded him with one baby boy that was born.

I wash all of their bedding together, and it isn't an issue. The mix up that caused the fight with my one boy pair happened because I like to leave my boys a dirty item when i clean out their cages to minimize scent marking, and I accidentally mixed up a dirty sow hide and the dirty hide from this particular boar pair.